Situation in global war on terror remains stern

Two explosions tore through a crowded pedestrian area of Turkey's largest city of Istanbul when local residents sat around to enjoy the cool of the evening or strolled along bustling streets on late Sunday, July 27. The blasts killed at least 15 people and injured more than 150 others, and 15 of them seriously.

A day earlier, a string of 18 explosions rocked and destroyed markets, bus stations, residential quarters, hospitals and other crowded areas in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state, west India last Saturday or July 26. The serial explosions killed at least 45 people and wounded 161. Also in India, 60 people died and more than 150 were injured in seven successive bomb blasts that occurred on May 13.

Terrorist attacks have taken place not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in other countries and regions since early this year. In some thrilling bomb blasts, the cruel, ruthless nature of terrorists has been fully exposed or unmasked. They not only target at innocent civilians at some overcrowded sites, but also resort to other means as fixing snag nails and other stuffings into deadly explosive devices to cause maximal casualties. They even did not let off hospitals, where many rescuers got killed.

Appalling horrible scenes drenched with much bloodshed have given people all over the world a clear and strong signal: Terrorism still poses a very immediate threat to the contemporary world, and the situation with global war on terrorism remains stern and stark.

Then, some people would naturally ask this question: The war on terrorism launched by the United States has been still going on with a steady increase in the cost of manpower and material and financial resources, and why terrorist activities have turned so ferocious and rampant? Here, we'd better hear what Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has said. "The war against terror cannot be won by police force alone," President Ben Ali acknowledged, and some new preventative measures should be taken, and the root cause for generating terrorism has to be eradicated by means of improving democracy, popularizing education and culture, raising the status of women and eradicating poverty. If the infallibility is claimed from one's might and persistence bent on via military means to combat terrorism, the effect is likely to discount greatly.

With the war on terror having been fought for year after year, some others may also ask: Why terrorists have not sunk into oblivion but contrarily make people feel the world insecure and more violent as they have gone on fighting against the terrorism more resolutely and relentlessly? This is, however, owed to an outcome inflicted by some of the moves taken to combat terrorism, apart from varied political, economic and social factors.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed his grave concern over the humanitarian crisis. He vehemently denounced such anti-terrorist moves as an "ethnic cleansing" operation, the massive bombing of cities, the mistreatment and torture of prisoners in violation of human rights and international humanitarian law and the ensuing deaths of innocent people. More important, he deemed such moves could possibly be taken as the excuse for terrorists to attract or regroup new recruits and create a round after another of violence. Facts have again told people that erroneous actions will incur even more serious consequences.

How to further reinforce global cooperation constitutes an important realm worthy of attention for the global war on terrorism. Without an effective international cooperation, it is out of the question to attain the objective for anti-terrorism efficaciously. Some Western nations could hardly push ahead the worldwide cooperation in the war on terror as they often resort to double standards in the sphere of fighting against terrorism and give heed only to their own concern to the neglect of terrorist threats posed for others.

To date, all above-mentioned questions have shed light on causes for an inconspicuous effect and stark reality in the ongoing global war on terrorism. So, the global community should reappraise and re-think carefully of such issues as those regarding the outcome of the war on terror, on how terrorism has been bred and multiplied, how to beef up cooperation in the anti-terrorism field and how to seek a temporary solution and uproot the cause of terrorism.
By People's Daily